


Words Left Soft, Left Whispered Unsaid

by falsechaos



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Dark!Tony, Frostiron Fest 2013, M/M, i'm not sure where, sneaky!Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:38:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsechaos/pseuds/falsechaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Frostiron Fest 2013.</p><p>Tony's not quite aware of the motion at first, the swing of his hand and arc of his arm somehow shuffled into the angry surge out of his chair and away from the table. Just that Loki Odinson's face deserves the indignity of an open palm slap.</p><p>The sharp crack echoes across the room.</p><p>Still not quite loud enough to bury the echoes of Loki's words.</p><p>"Take it back," Tony growls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words Left Soft, Left Whispered Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mezzo_marinaio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mezzo_marinaio/gifts).



> Written for the 2013 Frostiron Fest for mezzomarinaio using the following prompt:
> 
> "Kyou Kara Maou!AU. Somehow, Tony gets transported into the Great Demon Kingdom, where he discovers that he’s to become its next king. This doesn’t particularly appeal to the royal princes, whose opinion of human beings has never been the greatest. Offended by a comment made by Loki about his parentage, Tony slaps him and finds himself in an accidental engagement with the youngest prince."
> 
> It. Um. It mutated.
> 
> I'm sorry. :(
> 
> Big thanks to Chaperoned and Vilefangirl for beta and plot wrangling services.

Tony's not quite aware of the motion at first, the swing of his hand and arc of his arm somehow shuffled into the angry surge out of his chair and away from the table. Just that Loki Odinson's face deserves the indignity of an open palm slap.

The sharp crack echoes across the room.

Still not quite loud enough to bury the echoes of Loki's words.

"Take it back," Tony growls. His palm stings and he curls his fingers into a fist instead of shaking his hand about.

"How dare you."

Less a question from Loki and more a flat denial of the events that had just occurred, as if both realms weren't trembling on the verge of war now, as if Tony shouldn't be counting how many nukes he had stockpiled and how hard it would be to hijack a portal to stuff them into.

"CONGRATULATIONS!"

Tony and Loki both swerve, both snap their heads to stare at Loki's brother.

Thor stands with his arms outstretched to Loki and Tony both, a bright bouncy golden retriever of a god and it's the forced edge of his wide smile that makes the pit of Tony's gut drop down to his Gucci loafers.

"No!" Tony shouts. He backs up and holds up his hands. "No. That totally didn't count. That was... That was defending my mother's honor, that wasn't--

"That is exactly what it is." Except Tony doesn't think Loki is agreeing with him. Not with Loki trembling, not with that bright scarlet mark splayed across his cheek, not with the brittle arrogance that burns in his green eyes.

Thor sweeps them both into a one-armed hug on either side of his wide torso, both of them with limbs pinned down by tree trunk biceps. "You are to be wed and unite our realms as one!"

=====

Pepper takes news of the engagement better than he expected. "What."

"It just sort of happened!"

"How... how do you just 'sort of' get engaged!" Her heels click and clack across the tile floor and there's a rhythm there Tony can count, can rely on, better than any kitschy Newton's Cradle that ever cluttered up his desk. "Tony, we had trade negotiations to discuss, there were diplomats practically nailed to the walls!"

She slaps her hands down on the desk and Tony has the good sense to lean back instead of flinch. "I need to fix this!"

"This is what happens!" Tony said. He shoves his hands into his pockets. Then out again because he can't stand having his hands bound or restricted, even if he does it to himself. "I wouldn't care if you had a diplomat or interpreter or babysitter nailed to my ass! This is what happens when you... when..." He sinks back into his chair, not exactly sure when he stood up.

"When you expect someone to become king of the world?"

"Yes. That. That exactly." Now Tony's pacing and Pepper leans against the desk to give him space even though the office is big enough that it echoes. "Might have been nice of Dad to mention that at some point, 'Oh, hey kid, I sort of promised you over to some Space Vikings during World War II, just a heads up.' That would have been wonderful information to have before he died. Bastard."

But it's the sort of thing Tony would have done and he knows it, promised off some kid that he wasn't likely to live long enough to sire, especially if it meant getting his hands on the tesseract and unlocking the universe, hell, he'd promise his own firstborn for five minutes with the damned thing.

So he paces and rants and curses and Pepper lets him. She’ll give him all sorts of looks and call him all sorts of things about how stupid that was, but she’ll never push the why. Then he leans against his desk so she can lean her head against his shoulder, it’s safe and familiar and Tony wishes, wishes so very much, that he could just--

Then the phone rings and the moment is broken when she pulls away from him to pick it up.

Pepper puts the phone down.

Tony sees the precise shade of pink that flushed across her cheeks and twitches. A faint rose over her nose and cheeks means she's pleased and trying to hide it, usually so she doesn't reinforce some endearing misbehavior Tony would continue anyway. The sharp red that creeps up into the tips of ears means bad news.

"A Mr. Loki Odinson downstairs wishes to speak with you." She bites the message off syllable by syllable with white teeth and a tight lipped smile. "Did you bring him home with you, Tony?"

"Not... exactly?"

Her smile grows thinner and that is why Tony hired her in the first place. No shark smile for his personal assistant, not when that same quirk of her lips is already sharp enough to make sound bleed with disapproval. "You tell me about your engagement with your fiance waiting in the front lobby."

"Yes."

"Why." Not a question, but a demand.

"Because I couldn't shake him off, that's why!" Tony's turn to start pacing, to throw his hands up in the air only to snatch them back down before it becomes less a tantrum and more a full body flail. "He hasn't left my side since I slapped him, much as I'd really, really like for him to! It's not like it's even a real engagement, the prissy bastard still hasn't even formally accepted it!"

The hair raises on the back of Tony's neck and the room smells faintly of mint and the non-smell of a blank void at the same time. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and smiles carefully at Pepper. "Prissy bastard is right behind me, isn't he?"

Pepper looks down, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Mr. Odinson, I think Mr. Stark will have his full afternoon open at your leisure." The sharp, small smile is back, but only when she looks at Tony. Loki gets the softer look, the "I can't believe we have to deal with this idiot" look she reserves for difficult cases.

"I have meetings, Pepper!" Tony calls after her as she walks past Loki. "Very important meetings!"

"Just as important as all the other meetings you blow off and not nearly as important as discussing plans with your fiance," Pepper says and shuts the door with a polite little click that echoes louder than a full slam.

Loki wears a suit. Dark navy and very trim, showing off limbs that stretch on for miles without being gangly. On Asgard, he'd worn his hair long and a bit wild, in desperate need of something to gather it back or at least straighten it out. Now it's slicked back away from his face and neatly trimmed just past the base of his neck.

"I think our tailors need to exchange notes." Tony doesn't flinch from that sharp look meeting his own.

"You left rather abruptly," is all Loki says.

"Yeah, well, got engaged rather abruptly, too, didn't we?"

Loki steps forward, all long and loose strides, a predator's lazy prowl. "Yes, we did."

Short, terse little phrases. None of the flowery praises and honeyed tongue offered to the diplomats or ambassadors. No, to the one with real power, with real pull, just monosyllables and short looks.

Not that he was jealous.

Tony turns away, bearing his back and his displeasure at Loki's presence, nothing vulnerable at all in that display. "Guess I owe you a drink for your trouble, at least, coming all the way to dingy little Midgard."

There's a minibar under his desk because of course there is, where else would he put it? He roots around until he finds a decent bottle of scotch, the Buchanan’s, because distasteful fiance or not, never let it be said Tony Stark serves the cheap booze. Tumblers next, glass clinking against the table and then sloshed full of amber scotch. Tony offers one to Loki in mock salute.

It's a long, frigid moment before Loki deigns to stalk across the room and pick it up.

"So." Tony swishes the scotch in the tumbler before tipping his head back and gulping it down. "I believe this little misunderstanding started when you implied my mother was a..." He arches an eyebrow and looks over the top of his empty glass. "How did you phrase that? 'Mewling quim'?"

"Your lineage is hardly--"

"If I'd tried saying that shit you'd have killed me on the spot, right?"

"Yes." An admission of fact, not of shame, but it's the way Loki's eyebrows draw together in faint confusion that sets Tony's teeth on edge. "It would be my right."

Tony starts walking again after he sets down his glass. Just a prop, just something to do with his hands instead of wrapping them around the Asgardian's neck. "But not mine?"

"No. It is not."

He's circling Loki, slow steps with his hands folded neatly behind his back, copying Loki's earlier predatory walk. He has to look up, can't quite duplicate that sneering down his nose look, not when he's a good head shorter. But he manages with a sharp little Pepper smile of his own. "Wrong. I wouldn't care if your brother said it, I wouldn't care if your father said it. I wouldn't care who said it. Not giving a shit about who needs the smack to the face." A sharper smile, his own smile, a merchant's grin who knows he has the buyer on the ropes. "That's my right."

"You think yourself above the royalty of Asgard?" Loki sounds amused, looks amused, with that faint arch of his eyebrow and upturn of his lips, but the line of tension across his shoulders gives him away.

And he just made the sale. "You guys were the ones that contacted me about the tesseract. You guys need to figure it out. Not me. I didn't even need it to change the world." He shrugs. "Granted, you had to wait until the old man passed it down to me, but... Point still stands."

"Such arrogance for such a short lived insect," Loki purrs. He looks at the glass in his hand and then down at Tony. "You bypassed it because you couldn't handle it. I would hardly brag about the little toy you cobbled together."

Tony shrugs. "The arc reactor does have the slight benefit of not driving people insane. Mind you, some would argue I started out that way, but brilliance is often confused with madness."

"I imagine you are quite often confused."

"Often as I need to be to improve things."

Loki drinks his scotch. Sets the tumbler down. His hand is still chilled from the scotch when he wraps his fingers around Tony's throat. "How long would it take you to reach the ground from here, I wonder?"

Another shrug as though he couldn't feel his pulse jump against that calloused thumb digging into his throat. "About five seconds at this height and my weight." Tony smirks. "How long would it take until your mother forgives you for starting a war?"

"A very long time." The admission is a swear, is a sigh, is a thousand small things Tony has wished in the dead of night he had said to his mother while she was still alive.

"You can call this off any time you want, Princess."

Loki's hand tightens. Less like a noose and more like Tony's defiant baring of his throat is all that keeps Loki from falling into himself and never crawling back out. Tony knows that look, has seen it every time he thinks he's reached the bottom of the bottle only to find one more drink.

There's always one more drink.

"Can't, can you?" Tony bears his teeth and his mouth quirks in a faint upward curve. It's not a smile. "Pride on the line, that's a given. Something else though, right? It was gonna be you anyway. Dear old dad promises me over, I'm just supposed to be this well behaved little token mortal, nice little token of peace while he figures out the tesseract, little Rumpelstiltskin deal."

Loki remains silent.

"Mortal time's hard for you guys, isn't it?"

He's lifted up and slammed down and the air driven from his lungs and Loki straddles him. Fluid and lovely even as sparks dance behind Tony's eyes and his chest burns. Hundreds of years of training and it makes a dance out of a brawl.

Tony isn't scared until Loki touches the arc reactor buried in his chest. His breath catches in his throat as those long fingers circle the scar tissue, the flick of nail against glass under his shirt. "I could rip out your heart and have everything I need."

"Darling, I could do much better for wedding gifts," Tony wheezes. "Nice honeymoon in Honolu--"

"Enough!"

It really is. Tony stabs Loki in the ribs.

Loki lets out a tight little croak and falls limp over Tony. Paralyzed or not, a few hundred pounds of Asgardian is still a few hundred pounds and it takes a few moments of flailing and shoving before Tony can roll him off.

He takes a moment to catch his breath and a moment longer before Tony can sit up without feeling like the arc reactor has to settle back properly in its socket in his sternum.

Loki's baleful green eyes track every motion.

"Didn't even see me pull this out with the drinks, did you? Watched the whole damned thing, didn't even see. And you're supposed to be the clever one of the two. I can't believe it." Tony grunts and wobbles a moment sitting on the floor before he can pull himself back up to his feet and back over to the minibar under his desk.

He makes sure to take the knife with him.

It's not a knife, not exactly, even if it's small and slender and very dagger like. The balance is horrible for one, and the adamantium is discolored with carbon nanotubes to keep it sharp and to deliver a highly specific gamma pulse. Not a knife, but a needle.

"You'll be moving again in about fifteen minutes. By then, I'll be out the door and heading towards the airport." Tony pours another tumbler of scotch and leaves it on his desk. Sets the knife down next to it. "Consider this an early wedding gift. Needs about a day or so to recharge, but one good hit in the vitals is enough to kill an Asgardian."

Tony kneels down next to Loki, traces the bloodless hole he left in Loki's shirt. "Not a graze like that." He brushes the hair away from Loki's eyes and tucks it behind his ear. "Give me a call sometime, maybe we can make this work."

Then he pours a drink for himself, slugs it back, and gets his jacket.

He pauses before he reaches the door.

"I want to see Asgard burn as much as you do, Babe."


End file.
